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Toyota’s Alex Wurz on pole for WEC race in Brazil

Alex Wurz checks out the view from pit road at Brazil. On Friday, Wurz took the pole for the WEC race. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Toyota driver Alex Wurz on Friday snatched pole position for Saturday’s Sao Paulo 6 Hours—a round of the FIA World Endurance Championship—on his first flying lap of qualifying.

Wurz set a time of 1 minute, 22.871 seconds aboard the solo Toyota TS030 Hybrid to claim pole from sports-car newcomer Lucas di Grassi in an Audi R18 ultra around the 2.68-mile Interlagos circuit. The Austrian then shaved half a second from his time to record a 1:22.363 on his second lap to go nearly eight-tenths of a seconds quicker and reach the head of the timesheets.

“I am very pleased to bring home this pole position,” Wurz said. “We said at the beginning of this project that if in year one we could make a pole, it would be a dream. We are using new technology in a car made against the clock, so with this gap I am extremely happy.”

Wurz dedicated his pole to ex-Formula One medical delegate Sid Watkins, who died earlier this week at the age of 84.

Third place went to the hybrid Audi R18 e-tron quattro driven by Andre Lotterer. The German was just under two-tenths shy of his teammate.

The fastest privateer LMP1 runner was Neel Jani in the Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota B12/60. The Swiss shaded Danny Watts in the Strakka Racing HPD ARX-03a by just more than a tenth of a second.

Honors in the closely-fought LMP2 class went to Stephane Sarrazin in the Starworks Motorsport HPD ARX-03b. His best lap of 1:27.048 bettered John Martin’s second-place time of 1:27.153.